Welcome

Hello, my name is Dionne and I have been crafting for a very long time. As a very young child my mother tried to teach me to knit, it was a disaster. However, it must have sparked an interest in making things and, partly to prove that I was not totally useless and partly because I really wanted to make things, I taught myself to crochet. Over the years I have developed a love of cross stitch and all types of paper craft ..... I eventually even taught myself to knit.

I am married to a very understanding man, thank goodness, because I spend all my time either crafting, thinking about crafting or talking about crafting. I am hopeless at housework and dinner is often late!

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Dionne

Monday, 29 February 2016

Welcome, I hope you had a good weekend. I do not think can go any further without acknowledging that today is very special day ... a Leap Day, a day which we only have once every 4 years. As a child this day fascinated me, originally because it seemed so odd to have a day which only occurred once every 4 years and, when I was a little older, I would try to imagine what it must be like to be born on 29 February. Which day would I choose to celebrate my birthday on the other three years or would I ignore those years and age much more slowly than my sisters?

A new challenge starts at Crafty Boots Challenges today, I think it is true what they say, the older you get, the faster time flies and I find it heard to believe that this is already our fifth challenge this year! The new theme was inspired by the fact that here in the UK, next weekend is Mothering Sunday. But this challenge is not specifically about either Mothering Sunday or Mother's Day, it is celebrating all of the fairer sex and therefore the theme is entitled 'Something for the Lady'.

My card today is celebrating another special day. OK, it is not exactly 99 Red Balloons but there is an awful lot of them in this card and it is the first of six cards I shall be making over the next year for family or friends who will be turning 60.

I wanted a card which would reflect the awesomeness of reaching 60 and I also wanted it to reflect the larger than life personality of my amazing friend. We have been friends for a long, long time and have had so much fun together over the years. Sadly we do not see one another very often these days a we live over 200 miles apart but we keep in touch by phone and email.

This is the third or forth attempt at getting the card I wanted. I used the new-ish Stampin' Up bundle called 'Balloon Celebration'. I used the polymer stamps for version one but I was not happy with the quality of my stamped balloons. A little lateral thinking and I switched to punched balloons using some really lush red and gold glitter card, I used both punch sizes. I also stamped the balloon strings and cut around them. (As the thin balloon strings would not support the weight of the glittery balloons, I glued them to some acetate strips.)

I then took a kraft box and layered the surfaces with gold mirri and white glitter card. It took quite a few attempts to get the angles on the flaps just right.

As it is virtually impossible to successfully glue to glittered surfaces, I used small gold brads to attached the balloon strings. My gold numbers were die cut using Sizzix Bigz dies.

It took me almost two and a half weeks to ultimately achieve the look I was going for but I was very pleased with the end result. My next problem is to work out how to send it through the post.

Crafty Boots Challenges is celebrating the amazing artistic talent of one of it's Design Team, please find time to look at some of her work and perhaps leave her a few words.

Friday, 26 February 2016

The end of the week is almost here. The weather has been bitter here this week, there have been a few snow flurries but nothing has settled. Unfortunately, it seems that everyone and their brother have come down with an awful cough and cold .... yep, including yours truly!

It is so annoying, I had a few ideas for projects I would have liked to have made for the current 'No Stamps Allowed' Crafty Boots Challenge but, because of my cold, I just have not had the energy to get out my craft stuff to make them (I think this is the point where I am suppose to add a sad little face).

However, I made this card before I got the lurgy.

This card features my favourite Memory Box heart die, which I cut out of silver mirri card. I then matted and layered the heart shape with more silver mirri and white card. I added an heart shaped gem to the centre of the die, I think they look rather like fruit pastels! All of the silver mirri gives a lovely finish to the card but it is so hard to photograph, I had to turn it to one side to avoid of all of the reflections of myself, however, on the up side, you can see some of the dimension the card has.

Monday, 22 February 2016

Welcome to my blog, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for taking the time to visit me today and thank you for leaving comments about my work. I know how busy everyone is and I really appreciate those friends who comment, and sometimes, leave me little tips.

Two of my passions are card making and Crafty Boots Challenges, where the current theme is 'No Stamps Allowed', that is both rubber/cling type stamps and digital stamps. This has given me the opportunity to have a rummage amongst my stash and make use of some of my favourite dies.

I must apologies for the quality of these photos, I am quite convinced that my skills with the camera are getting worse.

Both of these cards feature the Tattered Lace High Heel Glam Stiletto Shoe die and the Sizzix Bigz Ornate Frame die.

I use a fancy lattice embossing folder to create the background for this card, which I then layered onto some Night of Navy card. Behind the shoe I placed some silver mirri card, the roses are from Wild Orchid Crafts.

As you can see, this second card was created in a very similar way. I embossed some Night of Navy card with a heart lattice embossing folder. The white flowers were made with Joy Crafts Flower Daisy die and some white brads.

Don't forget to join in the Crafty Boots fun and enter your projects into this challenge.

Wednesday, 17 February 2016

I think it is always a good idea to keep a small selection of sympathy cards and new baby cards by in case you need one in a hurry. The current challenge at Crafty Boots has give me the opportunity to try a style of card I have wanted to make for a long time.

I think the first time I saw this style it was a New Baby card, but since I have seen a lot which say NOEL and every Christmas I think that this year I will have a go at making some, but never do. These are my first attempt and, once I had worked out all of the dimensions, they were a lot of fun to make

As you can see, the two cards are slightly different. For the small white squares I have used Spellbinder dies, but they are not quite the same.

I also used dies to cut the two larger squares, but I clipped the corners so they matched the scalloped card blanks and the Spellbinder dies.

The letters were cut with Sizzix Bigz dies. I layered them up with foam pads and chose a matching coloured ribbon. The little boy and girl charms came from my stash.

This style of card certainly makes a nice change from colouring images and I think if am going to make some NOEL cards this year, I should do it before I loose my note of the sizes. Why not set aside your pens and pencils and make something without stamps and share it with us at Crafty Boots Challenges.

Monday, 15 February 2016

It is time for a new challenge at Crafty Boots Challenges. For the next two weeks my very talented team mate, Lisette, is asking you to put away your stamps (this includes both rubber/cling stamps as well as digital stamps).

This is quite a challenge for me, as you know, I almost always use stamps in my work. For many years it was wood mounted rubber stamps and eventually the lovely Stephanie-Emma convinced me that digital stamps were not the devil and, if I am honest, I was soon head over heals about them. No more smudging, no more inky fingers, no clearing up the mess, plus you can make them any size you like.

However, for the next two weeks I need to think of others ways to create a card and I thought dies. I have a very large collection of metal dies, about a third of which I have probably never used.

However, I do love my butterfly dies and have quite a large collection of them. This card features two of them - The first is a Memory Box die and the second is by Joy Crafts. I started with a 6 x 6 blanks card, which I then covered the front with some lilac pearlised card. Next I cut the Memory Box butterfly from the same pearlised card and the Joy Craft edge butterfly was cut from white card.

I attached the edge die to some white card and created a wrap, leaving the lilac card to show through the cut away parts of the edge die. I attached the Memory Box die to the card and finished it off with some lilac flat backed gems.

My team mates have come up with other ways to avoid your stamps and yet still make lovely cards, make sure you check out the Crafty Boots Challenges blog and see them for yourself when you enter your projects.

Friday, 12 February 2016

As you may know, the theme of the current Crafty Boots Challenge is 'Love is in the Air'. I have another of my Design Team cards to share with you today.

This femme fatale is from Saturated Canary, the image is called 'On my Heart'. I coloured her using Promarkers and I added Glossy Accents to the heart. I then mounted it onto gold mirri and some deep pink pearlised card. The spot UV backing paper is from a Santoro paper stack and the ribbon and charm are from my stash.

Wednesday, 10 February 2016

I'm a little late with this post, so apologies. It is a dark and miserable day here today and there were a few flakes of something resembling snow just as it was getting light. Luckily nothing came of it, but the temperature stayed very low all day.

You may have seen from an earlier post that I ran out of ink for my printer the other day, so whilst I am waiting for the replacement cartridges to arrive I have raided my stash of bits and bobs. These have been in a folder for a long time waiting for me to get around to making them into a card (actually there is more than one folder) - I do not know whether others have a pile like this, or if it is just me. Consequently, I am not sure where anything came from from. I coloured the image with Promarkers and I popped a little Glossy Accents on her hair bands. I mounted the image on some silver mirri and Night of Navy card, which I had embossed.

Over at Crafty Boots Challenges the current challenge is titled 'Love is in the Air'. I hope you will have the opportunity to enter some of your own work.

Monday, 8 February 2016

The current challenge at Crafty Boots Challenges is 'Love is in the Air'. It is certainly a very romantic month with St Valentine's Day at the end of this week. But this challenge is not just about St Valentine's Day, but anything to do with love, like weddings, engagements and wedding anniversary's.

The card I should like to share with you today features one of Saturated Canaries images called Canary Love. I coloured the image with Promarkers, as you can see, I decided that a little dove is slightly more romantic than a canary. I then mounted the image on some silver mirri and some pink card.

I wanted to print the Digi Rainbow's Love Letters backing paper in pink for this card, however, bad timing, I ran out of ink as I printed the paper. Mind you, I rather liked the effect and decided to use it anyhow. The paper lillies are from Wild Orchid Crafts, I punched the leaves using a Martha Stuart punch and two Xcut dimensional embossing punches. The twine, glass headed pins, heart charm and yellow bows are from my stash.

We have a wonderful Guest Designer today as well as some fabulous projects from our Design Team. But don't take my word for it, make sure you pop over to the Crafty Boots Challenges blog and see for yourself.

Thursday, 4 February 2016

I hope you are happily surviving the extremes in weather we all seem to be experiencing at the moment. It does not seem to matter where you live, the weather everywhere seems to be not as expected.

The current challenge at Crafty Boots Challenges is 'Love is in the Air'. This challenge is about love and romance and not just St Valentin's Day. My card today is for a wedding we are going to later this year.

This happy couple are from Aurora Wings by Mitzi Sato-Wiuff, the image is called 'Wedding Couple'. This is such a delicate image, and I did not want to ruin it by over colouring it, so I used Promarkers to highlight just a few area. I then used my Wink of Stella Brush to add sparkle to the veil and dress.

I mounted the image on Silver mirri and Perfect Plum card. I then covered a card blank with lilac pearlised card and added some lace from my stash and a spray of Wild Orchid Crafts roses.

Monday, 1 February 2016

'Love is in the Air' is the theme of a new challenge that starts at Crafty Boots Challenges today. This challenge gives me the opportunity to dig out my paper flowers, ribbon, pearls, lace and all things romantic.

My card today is intended for St Valentine's Day but this challenge is not only about that special day for the romantics, but also wedding days, engagements, wedding anniversaries etc.

This little angel may not be perfect but she is holding my heart to give to a very special person. The image is from Delicious Doodles and is called 'Emo Valentine Fairy'. You may be thinking that she does not look very Emo, that is because I have taken the liberty of tidying her up a smidge and I hope that the very talented Teri Sherman is not to annoyed with me for this.

After colouring the image with Promarkers I mounted it on some gold mirri card. Then I covered a card blank with some Real Red card. The pearl string is from Wild Orchid Crafts. I had intended to add a sentiment but it upset the symmetry of the design, so in the end, I left it off.

As always on these occasions, the rest of the Craft Boots Challenges Design Team have been very busy making some wonderful projects. Please pop over and see them for yourself - and don't forget to add projects to the challenge.